Aaron Rai was already enjoying a solid round on Saturday at the Players Championship, four-under on his day through 16 holes. Rai is now in the tournament mix thanks to his theatrics on the 17th hole. We suggest turning the volume up on your computer or smart device.

ANOTHER ACE ON 17!!!!!

Aaron Rai makes his first career ace to send the crowd into a frenzy! pic.twitter.com/48vVElNQr7

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 11, 2023

That is the look of pure joy, my friends.

Pure emotion ? pic.twitter.com/KR6KKMbvfP

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 11, 2023

It is the first time in Players Championship history that there have been two holes-in-one on the 17th in the same week. On Thursday Hayden Buckley made 1, only topping it with an all-time celebration.

Rai then made birdie on the last hole, after he hit his approach shot to four feet. He and Buckley are the only two players in the history of the Players to finish 1-3 on Nos. 17 and 18. Rai also birdied No. 16 to play the last three holes in four under, a first in the history of this championship.

“Hit it great, looked great in the air and very pleased to see it go in. That was an incredible moment,” Rai said. “And very pleased of the way that I played 18 as well on the back end of that. It can be quite tricky to compose myself after a situation like that, so to hit a great tee shot, to hit a great second shot and to make birdie was a very pleasing way to finish.”

Rai, 28, is in his second full year on the PGA Tour. He made headlines last month when he decided to follow Tiger Woods during the Wednesday pro-am at the Genesis Invitational because he was excited to be able to watch him up close and in person.

The post Aaron Rai is a picture of joy after the second ace of the week on Sawgrass 17th appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

To be fair to the 10-time DP World Tour winner, the choice wasn’t that quite that easy, with Noren being the first alternate for the final major of the year. That being said, it was an interesting decision to fly to California for a few reasons. A decision the 40-year-old Swede is undoubtedly kicking himself over now.

On Thursday morning, Justin Rose withdrew from the Open, leaving the door open for someone else. With Noren not there, the coveted spot in the field went to Rikuya Hoshino. Ouch. Later, Erik van Rooyen became a second WD and he was replaced by Aaron Rai. Again, ouch.

Look, being an alternate at a golf tournament is like flying on standby. It’s a bit of a risk because you can go through a lot of effort and get nothing out of it. But, again, Noren, one of the highest-ranked players in the world (No. 66) not in the field at St Andrews, was the first alternate. And this is the Open Championship. At St. Andrews! And he was already in Scotland after finishing T-30 at last week’s Scottish Open! Instead he flew halfway around the world! To play in the Barracuda Championship!

Making the decision even more questionable is the fact that Noren is currently No. 75 on the FedEx Cup points list and in no danger of losing his PGA Tour card for next season. And yet he passed up a possible opportunity to play in an Open Championship at the Home of Golf. Pretty wild.

At least he wouldn’t have gotten a fun pairing. Wait, never mind! Noren would have played with Ryder Cup teammates Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood. It doesn’t get much more fun than teeing it up with Moliwood!

Of course, if Noren winds up winning the Barracuda Championship, he’ll have made the right decision. Maybe.

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The post Open Championship 2022: Alex Noren has to be kicking himself for questionable decision that cost him his tee time appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

David Lipsky and Aaron Rai prepare to putt on the ninth green during Thursday’s first round of the 2022 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Sarah Stier

By Ryan Herrington

There are ways to prepare for a PGA Tour event. Being involved in a car accident is not among those recommended.

Thankfully, David Lipsky wasn’t hurt, nor was anyone else in the fender bender the 33-year-old tour rookie was involved in Tuesday morning as he was driving to TPC Louisiana ahead of a practice round at the Zurich Classic.

Lipsky said that he was changing lanes to avoid a car ahead of him that was broken down when he was hit from behind by another vehicle. “Yeah, it was a little bit of a hectic beginning to the week,” Lipsky said.

Your @Zurich_Classic co-leader David Lipsky, who is teaming with Aaron Rai, already had an eventful week. He was involved in a car crash on Tuesday heading to the course. He said no one was hurt in the accident. pic.twitter.com/EobINlcQ4B

— Rex Hoggard (@RexHoggardGC) April 21, 2022

Yet not so hectic as to keep him from sitting near the top of the leader board after the opening round on Thursday. Paired with England’s Aaron Rai, the duo shot a 10-under 61 during four-ball play to sit one off the lead after the morning wave.

Lipsky, a California native who lives in Las Vegas, made six birdies on his own ball in the best-ball format as well as holing out for an eagle from 113 yards on the par-4 eighth, the team’s second-to-last hole.

“David played some incredible golf, hit some shots really close, putted well,” Rai said. “And David made a lot of birdies, especially early on and around the turn, which really got things going for us.”

This is the first time Lipsky and Rai, also playing his first year on the PGA Tour, have competed in the Zurich Classic, and while it might not seem like the American and the Brit have much in common, the two had become friendly competing together on the DP World Tour the past half-dozen years. Additionally, their caddies often room together on the road, which is how the pairing came to be.

“It’s just a comfortable fit for us,” Lipsky said. “We know each other from the European Tour. So we always have that in common. I think it was meant to be.”

After earning his PGA Tour card via Korn Ferry Tour finals last fall, Lipsky had missed the cut in six of his first seven tour starts. Since then, the two-time European Tour winner made seven of nine cuts, including a T-7 finish at the Corales Puntacana Resort Championship in March.

Similarly, Rai, 27, had success in Europe, winning twice in the previous three years, before earning his card via the KFT Finals, but has been slow to find his footing on the PGA Tour. He’s posted just one top-10 finish (T-6 at Farmers) in 16 starts.

The comfort of sharing the load this week seemed evident on Thursday but will take on a different complexion Friday when the pair compete in alternate-shot play. “I’ve never played foursomes before,” Rai said. “So tomorrow will be the first time.”

How about Lipsky?

“There’s an event in Europe, it was called the GolfSixes. You only played like six holes. Every hole had like a different theme. One was alternate shot, one was best ball. So I played like two holes alternate shot like five years ago.”

With Lipsky already having an unusual week, perhaps not knowing what you don’t know will be a good thing.

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The post From car accident to Zurich Classic leader board, tour rookie Lipsky has already had an eventful week appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Huggan
Given what had gone before, the ultimate (anti) climax of this Scottish Open was perhaps inevitable. Yes, Tommy Fleetwood made a 15-footer for birdie on the Renaissance Club’s 18th green to force a playoff with fellow Englishman Aaron Rai. But over the previous 17 holes, the 29-year-old World No. 17 missed any number of makable putts that could, should and would have seen him stroll to a comfortable victory in this $7 million Rolex Series event.

But that didn’t happen. The two protagonists tied on 11-under 273 at the picturesque Tom Doak design on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, one shot ahead of a third Englishman, Robert Rock (who made bogey on the 72nd hole). And it took only one more hole to decide the destination of the €974,000 first-place check. After watching Rai make a chip-and-putt par after hitting his drive in a fairway bunker, Fleetwood took three putts from the fringe, missing from not much more than three feet to hand victory to his younger compatriot.

“I just fell short really,” was Fleetwood’s inevitably glum verdict. “I felt like I played really well today, especially on that back nine. But my putting really cost me this week. That last one summed it up really. It was just a straight pull. You always try to look at the positives but I cocked it up on the first playoff hole. And that’s that. I’ll sulk for about five hours on the way home. Maybe the only positive is that no one beat me over 72 holes. Clearly my game is coming back. For a lot of this week I felt more like the player I should be.”

Rai isn’t doing so badly himself. One week after a second-place finish at the Irish Open, the man who wears two gloves to hit every full shot is now a two-time winner on the European Tour, having first tasted victory at the 2018 Hong Kong Open. This latest step up, though, is the biggest yet for the 25-year-old who turned pro in 2012. A winner in Scotland on the third-division EuroPro Tour in 2015 (he took home a golf trolley and a range finder), Rai won three times on the Challenge Tour in 2017. Now he sits sixth on the European Tour’s Race to Dubai points list for 2020 and is a member of the world’s top-100 players. Heady stuff.

A soft-spoken, almost shy individual, Rai seemed nearly overcome by the magnitude of his latest achievement. It certainly didn’t come easy. After a bogey on the second hole of his final round, he made the eight birdies he needed to tie Fleetwood, shooting a closing 64 after starting the day tied for 10th, five strokes back of overnight leader Rock. And, just as Rai had done on the final hole of regulation play, he drove into sand in the playoff. With his opponent in the middle of the fairway, Rai’s prospects were clearly veering into a territory known as “bleak.” But just as he had done earlier, Rai saved par.

“Both times I was fortunate to be far enough back from the lip that I could almost make the green,” he said. “And it definitely helped me the second time round that I knew what to expect from the shot. I was still thinking 4 would be a great score though. And I was lucky, too, that the flag was so close to the front of the green. If it had been a back pin, I probably wouldn’t have made par both times. But you always need a little bit of good fortune. That was mine. And of course I wasn’t expecting Tommy to make 5.”

Tommy Fleetwood congratulates Aaron Rai after winning the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open on the first playoff hole. Ross Kinnaird

Perhaps the only note of discord as Rai has plotted his way through professional golf has been his pace of play. Or, more specifically, his lack of pace. Back in early 2018, former Open champion Paul Lawrie “named and shamed” Rai as one of the worst slow coaches on the European Tour. And, judging by the methodical nature of his pre-shot routine this week, not much has changed in the interim.

Still, at least one major champion won’t be surprised by Rai’s success. Speaking prior to the tournament, 2005 U.S. Open winner Michael Campbell expressed his admiration for Rai’s game.

“Aaron is very good,” Campbell said. “I played with him in Wales, and he showed me all the shots. He works the ball both ways and can hit it high and low too. He’s got all the tools. What he does is hard to do with the modern equipment, but he does it very well.”

Indeed. And this week, no one did it better.

The post Aaron Rai mounts impressive Sunday charge, wins Scottish Open in playoff over Tommy Fleetwood appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By The Editors
It was Moving Day on Saturday at the Irish Open, and Englishman Aaron Rai produced among the strongest rounds on the tough Galgorm Spa course in shooting three-under 67 to own the solo lead at eight under.

But that was far from the most eye-catching development of the day. Ballymena, an inland Northern Ireland town of 29,000, 27 miles north of Belfast, is green, rural and dotted with plenty of farms. Indeed, the hometown of actor Liam Neeson once hosted Ireland’s largest agricultural fair. Otherwise, Galgorm Spa and its course are the biggest visitor attraction.

There happens to a farm near the golf course, and that’s where one of the year’s greatest video and photo opportunities happened. With the European Tour closing events to spectators due to the coronavirus, a couple set up chairs outside a fence beside the 14th hole, presumably on their own property, packed some snacks and drinks, and then were joined by more than a dozen “friends.” A herd of cows, acting almost like a pack of happy dogs and trying to mooch the food, surrounded them. Comically, the couple sat blithely there as if there were butterflies in their midst and not tons of livestock.

Mooving day at the @DDFIrishOpen ?#DDFIrishOpen pic.twitter.com/qJPj8F4uxp

— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) September 26, 2020

“Isn’t that a fantastic picture?” one of the television commentators said. “Autograph that somebody quickly; that’s brilliant.”

Word was that they were going to play this tournament until the cows come home.

Have we milked this enough?

The post Holy cow! It’s a different kind of Moo-ving Day in the Irish Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Huggan
Listen carefully. This is a little complicated. So stay with me here.

Six men—Martin Kaymer, Aaron Rai, Lucas Bjerregaard, Scott Hend, Max Kieffer and Chris Paisley—went to bed on the eve of the BMW International Open’s final round tied for the lead on five under par. By the time they reached the first tee the next morning, all six were four shots off the pace, courtesy of Thorbjorn Olesen’s course-record 61 at Golf Club Gut Laerchenhof just outside Cologne. And 4½ hours after that, Matt Wallace, who woke up Sunday morning two-strokes back of all those overnight leaders, was the champion, one-shot ahead of Kaymer, Olesen and Mikko Korhonen.

Truly, golf is the most unpredictable of games.

Olesen first then. Two over par through 54 holes and seemingly out of contention, the Dane, recent winner of the Italian Open and nine days removed from missing the cut by a shot at the U.S Open, made nine birdies and an eagle in the bogey-free effort that set such a stern target for the sextet at the top of the leaderboard. Five of those birdies came in the last six holes. Someone was going to have to play well to beat his nine-under-par 279 total.

In the end, that man was Wallace, who also failed to make the weekend at Shinnecock Hills by the narrowest of margins. The 28-year-old Englishman made seven birdies, and no bogeys, in a Sunday 65 that was good enough to take him to 10 under par and a second victory of this European Tour season. Like Olesen, Wallace made his score on the back-nine. Five birdies in seven holes from the turn from the Hero Indian Open champion set an even more challenging target for those in the final two groups. One that was, eventually, too much for all of them.

“Brilliant to win here in Germany,” said Wallace, who also claimed the Open de Portugal crown towards the end of last year. “The BMW is such a great event, and to play against the likes of Martin Kaymer and the guys at the top there, it’s great. I have worked hard for this. I believe I can do it. I want to go further, I want to keep building on this. Obviously, this gives me a lot of confidence to go on and play well, and I want to kick on and hopefully do this in the bigger events from now on. This is great, this is a step in the right direction. We’ll keep working hard to bigger and better things.”

Kaymer stumbled on the 71st hole, costing him a chance to end his four-plus-year victory drought. (Matthew Lewis/Getty Images)

Of the three runners-up, Kaymer surely left the course with the biggest regrets. Already nine under par, the former U.S Open and PGA champion stood maybe 20 yards short of the green on the 397-yard 17th after a perfect tee shot. Unfortunately, the German’s next effort was less impressive. Badly thinned, Kaymer’s pitch careered through the green into heavy rough. Three more to get down meant the former World No. 1’s chance for a first victory since Pinehurst No. 2 four years ago had all but gone. His birdie on the final hole, courtesy of a 20-foot putt, was irrelevant as far who was going to be cashing the €333,330 first-place check was concerned.

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By Kent Gray
Eddie Pepperell pens an insightful and often deeply personal blog and his regular musings on social media, even those non golf related, are also anticipated for their thoughtful frankness.

On Thursday, the 27-year-old Englishman did his entertaining not online but instead on course, grabbing a share of the first round lead at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters with Frenchman Grégory Havret and rookie compatriot Aaron Rai.

Flushed pitch. Easy putt.@PepperellEddie moves to 7 under par. pic.twitter.com/3dF16vd9zU

— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) February 22, 2018

After missing cuts in Abu Dhabi and Dubai before also-ran performances of 80th and T-44 in Kuala Lumpur and Muscat respectively, the seven-under 65 at Doha Golf Club was a unexpected beacon amid a relatively gloomy start to the season. But Pepperell, coming off the back of his career best 41st placing in last season’s Race to Dubai, felt form brewing even in the same week he’s taken on a new coach.

In a tweet on Monday, Pepperell hinted as much in his typically self-deprecating way.

“I hit it so well on the range today I almost posted a video. Then I realised even I don’t give a s…”

He continued on Thursday after a round of eight birdies and a solitary bogey blemish on the par-3 13th.

“I’ve made some changes this week with personnel so I’ve been working on a couple of new things and I surprised myself out there with how well I managed to trust it,” he told EuropeanTour.com.

“It’s been pretty nice on the range, although yesterday it was a bit of a grind, a bit of a struggle in the afternoon so I was in my room in my boxers doing some drills last night.”

We can confirm the hotel grind via this tweet. Thankfully had a pair of shorts on too.

What I’ve found this week to be the secret is how getting the reps in with a wiffle ball in your hotel room, can really go a long way. pic.twitter.com/RCyTVVoUxY

— Eddie Pepperell (@PepperellEddie) February 22, 2018

“I’m looking forward to the weekend but even more so moving forward to the rest of the season. I want to push forward and I just feel like my game has been hitting ceilings a bit. I want to break through that.” So far so good in Qatar.

Like Pepperell, Havret and Rai made the most unusually benign morning conditions at Doha where there was even rain for the first time since last March.

Havret has missed as many cuts as made in six starts this season including at last week’s new NBO Oman Open but produce a bogey-free card that included five gains in a six hole stretch mid round. It was a tasty start for the 41-year-old who is searching for his fourth European Tour title – 10 years after he won the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles in Scotland.

“I was putting well and that’s definitely the key,” Havret said. “Last week I didn’t play much different and I missed the cut by a lot.

“As soon as you feel your putting is not able to compensate for your mistakes you put more pressure on your driving and your iron shots and then it can be a disaster as you try things that you normally don’t. It’s all part of the process, if you putt well you feel comfortable.”

Rai won three times on the Challenge Tour last season to earn automatic promotion to the European Tour but like Havret has had just a 50 percent success rate in terms of cuts made in his six starts on the main tour this far.

He had the most impressive finish of the co-leaders with an eagle three on 18.

“Gameplan-wise, you have to be doing something right and playing some good golf to shoot a 65 so I’ll just continue in the same vein and try not to change too much.”

For the record, England’s Oliver Fisher, Italian Edoardo Molinari, Spaniard Alvaro Quiros and German Marcel Schneider are a shot off the lead after 66s. Among the seven players tied for 8th after 65s are Dubai-domiciled Spaniard Adrian Otaegui and MENA Tour regular Joshua White (ENG).

But the last word, or tweet at least, to Pepperell. How did you celebrate you best Thursday of the season?

It’s what every golfer deserves after a good morning. pic.twitter.com/NXwyPu32y7

— Eddie Pepperell (@PepperellEddie) February 22, 2018

It was certainly sweet day for the Englishman.

After 18 holes:

??????? -7 Rai
??????? -7 Pepperell
?? -7 Havret
?? -6 E. Molinari
?? -6 Schneider
?? -6 Quiros
?? -5 Ilonen
?? -5 Heisele
?? -5 Otaegui

All Scores: https://t.co/8M0WPsnuHO pic.twitter.com/zL9XhYprS3

— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) February 22, 2018

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